Reintroduced pheasants doing well so far in Pa.

MERCERSBURG (AP) — Franklin County’s first colony of ring-necked pheasants is in a family way.

On a short walk from the barn into the tall grasses, Brandon Black flushes four fledglings and two hens. A rooster disappears around the corner of a mulberry grove.

“Things are going real well,” said Black, a wildlife biologist aide with the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

In fewer than five months, the Franklin County Wild Pheasant Recovery Area has come to life with eggs, broods and roaming roosters.

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It’s still too early to let sportsmen and their dogs into the field, or even to determine the survival rate, but there are indications that the birds like their new home.

Black is tracking 20 birds in the summer heat and humidity. More than four months ago in near-zero wind chills, the Game Commission released about 70 pheasants, many with radio collars.

“Our plan was to get 300 birds,” he said. “Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.”

The Game Commission relocated most of the birds from Montana. Trappers from the commission were not familiar with the new territory and weather warmed during the operation, Black said. Cold weather is needed to draw pheasants to the bait.

The hope is to add 300 pheasants to the Franklin County Wild Pheasant Recovery Area next year. The area is the most recent of four WPRAs in Pennsylvania. Startup was hampered when states were reluctant to part with their own declining stocks of wild pheasants. A Crow tribe in Montana has agreed to allow the Game Commission trap its birds.

Flying the pheasants from Montana worked well and is likely to be repeated next year, according to Black. It’s cheaper and the birds are in captivity for a shorter period.

Black has been noting his observations of the pheasants in Montgomery Township. He sweeps his antenna across the landscape. His receiver beeps when it detects a bird’s radio frequency.

About three-fourths of birds with collars are hens. He’s accidentally come upon two nests.

“We try to stay away as much as we can,” he said.

One with 11 eggs at the edge of a hay field survived the mowing by two feet.

Black nearly stepped on the second as he was trying to locate a radio-collared hen in tall grass. The beeping was loud. He unplugged the antenna, and the sound changed little.

“I thought I must be right on top of her,” he said. “She flew up right at my feet. She had nine eggs in that nest.”

The recent dry weather has been good for broods, he said. A mother must try to cover her chicks when it rains to protect them from the chill.

So far two pheasants have been killed by vehicles, Black said. Half of the remaining casualties were from owls and hawks, and the rest from mammals such as foxes, coyotes, cats and raccoons.

“Foxes are normally a bigger killer than coyotes,” Black said.

Pheasants don’t always fly when disturbed. The flattened, matted grass has a network of tunnels unseen from the air and tough to nose into.

“There are bugs just everywhere,” Black said. “This is perfect for them.”

The fields are planted in summer grasses, cup plant, corn and switch grass, which stands upright in winter. The cup plant looks like a mini-sunflower, grows to 10 feet and is easily digestible by livestock.

Some birds have gone off on their own and away from the habitat on Shimpstown Road. At least five ventured into a field of tall grass about a mile away, Black said. Two died. Two came back, and another stayed and nested. Some also have crossed the highway to thick brush and to the Whitetail Golf Resort.

A recent report by the Game Commission found that introduced pheasants are slow to breed outside clumps of native grasses in the Central Susquehanna WPRA, which covers parts of Columbia, Montour and Northampton counties.

It will be several years before the Game Commission judges the outcome of the Franklin County WPRA. The area extends from Mercersburg north to U.S. 30 and south to the Maryland border.

Pheasant hunting is not allowed for at least six years in a WPRA, according to Game Commission guidelines. In each of the first three years 300 pheasants are to be released. The surviving birds are watched for three more years before decisions are made.

The commission issues an annual report on the WPRAs.

Black will be shooing gnats and listening for evidence of survivors through the end of nesting season this year.